Editorial: Mr. Obama sees the crisis

Published 9:41 pm, Thursday, December 8, 2011

The President says the middle class and the American way of life are in peril like never before.

THE STAKES:

Can he engage the public enough to change that?

President Obama ventured deep into the Republican heartland on Tuesday in an inevitable escalation of his bitter and counterproductive three-year war with his political opposition.

Americans are all too familiar with that rhetorical combat by now. The President pushes an agenda for economic recovery that's often too modest when incomes are falling and more than 25 million people are desperate for full-time work.

And the Republicans? They resist. They oppose anything Mr. Obama might suggest to bolster the economy if it also helps his political fortunes.

So now Mr. Obama has spelled out the grave consequences of government inaction in the face of the worst economy in 80 years.

It's nothing less than the end of the American middle class.

"This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class," the President said in Osawatomie, Kan. "What's at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement."

He might have put their need to obtain a college education on that list as well.

Still, this was perhaps the most significant speech of a presidency that began with such high, even unrealistic, hopes and now tries to navigate a toxic political gridlock. Yet for all its pointed references and stern warnings, Mr. Obama's speech also struck an inclusive tone much like the one he gave at the 2004 Democratic convention that put him on the national stage.

"This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot," he said. "These aren't Democratic values or Republican values. These aren't 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They're American values. And we have to reclaim them."

The question, obviously, is how. Ideally, he would follow up such a passionate speech with the boldest economic agenda since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society or even Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.

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It's Mr. Obama's political misfortune, however, that he has to think more incrementally in hopes of prevailing over Republican resistance. Yet it's essential that he forge ahead with a strong, detailed economic plan that redefines the politics of the possible. And he can't rely on just one speech, no matter how soaring the oratory, to bring Republicans on board.

The President is still fighting for a tax cut for the people who could truly use one — a reduction in the Social Security payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 3.1 percent, rather than letting it return to 6.2 percent.

The Republicans, meantime, are playing their usual games. They oppose how the President would pay for it, with a 1.9 percent surtax on incomes over $1 million. Now they have this condition, too, for a tax cut — approval of the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that Mr. Obama wisely wants to delay.

On it goes. The GOP has no use for a jobs program that, under the more promising projections, would provide full-time work to more than 1 million people. Nor does it care about the 1 million people to whom the President wants to give mortgage relief.

That needs to change, of course. Mr. Obama sure didn't win any Republican allies this week. His better hope is that such a heartfelt appeal for the survival of the middle class will awaken the public. It's the voters, not the President, who can prod the Republicans into sharing Mr. Obama's empathy and his urgency. It's their country, too.